Water Allocation (Variation 6) to the Waikato Regional Plan came into force in April 2012 and is designed to manage water for the health of waterways.

For dairying, the rules’ main impact is that dairy sheds using over 15m3 per day of surface water (such as river, stream, creek or spring) or groundwater (such as bore water) need a resource consent. Fifteen cubic metres per day equates to around 215 cows. 

To reduce farmers’ consenting costs, they can have their consents processed along with others in their catchment. This will lower the consent cost than if the consent is processed individually.